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In this podcast I’ll be exploring the topic of Detoxification:
- I’ll talk about the health impacts of having excess toxins in your body and explain how your innate detoxification system works
- I’ll talk about the hidden toxins that could be lurking in your environment
- Finally, I’ll share some tips on how to support your innate detoxification system
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Today there are over 85,000 industrial chemicals in the environment. Globally this equates to 310 kg (685 lbs) of toxic chemicals being released into the air, on land, and in waterways every second.
Toxic industrial chemicals are all around us and are the price we pay for civilisation and advanced technology.
Even newborn babies have been shown to have on average over 250 toxic chemicals in their umbilical cord blood. 180 of these chemicals were carcinogenic meaning cancer causing compounds.
The health impacts of toxic exposure include:
- Neurological disorders
- Endocrine disruption causing hormonal imbalances
- Unstable blood sugar
- Accelerated aging
- Digestive disorders causing malnutrition
- Fatigue and low energy
- Reduced bone integrity and muscle mass
- Increased fat gain
- Autoimmune diseases
- Weakened immune system
- Increased inflammation and of course again
- Promote tumour growth aka cancer
Now our ancestors never had to deal with such an overload of toxins. They would only have been exposed to a foreign toxic chemical if they lived by an active volcano, were exploring underground caves, or came across an unknown species of plant or venomous animal.
Your body has an innate intelligence that breathes you, that beats your heart, that helps you grow, that heals and repairs you, and also detoxifies you.
Fortunately for our ancestors their innate detoxification system could function without much strain or stress. Unfortunately for us that’s just not the world we live in today. Industrial chemicals, heavy metals, naturally occurring biotoxins, electromagnetic fields and radiation, high levels of perceived stress these all create a toxic load on the body and your body’s innate ability to detox is near breaking point every day.
There are two types of toxicity or toxic exposure.
Acute or sudden toxicity means your body has been exposed to a high dose of a single toxin creating an immediate reaction in your body also known as being poisoned.
Chronic or gradual toxicity means your body has been exposed to extremely low doses of many different toxins creating a slow and steady response over time.
This doesn’t mean chronic toxicity is not as bad as acute. Far from it. Both acute and chronic toxicity are equal in how they affect your life. While one will kill you in the moment the other will kill you slowly, but surely over time.
In order to explain how chronic toxicity makes for a slow and painful death I need to talk about mitochondria. These are the parts of a cell that convert fatty acids, lactic acid, and glucose a sugar molecule into physical energy. So these guys are the power-plants, the energy centres of the cell and your entire body.
A quick side note it is believed that mitochondria were one of the first single-celled organisms to have evolved billions of years ago and the fact that they have their own DNA separate to the cell and to you supports this idea. So mitochondria are bacteria that use the human body as a vehicle to feed themselves. Trippy huh? Now if you also think about the fact that there are 10 times more microorganism cells than human cells and 100 times more microorganism DNA than human DNA in your body it kind of makes you wonder… who’s running what now? I mean that’s a bit of a mind cluster right there. Definitely makes me come back to that age old question, ‘Who am I?’.
Anyhoo back to chronic toxicity… any excess toxins that your body cannot detoxify and process gets stored in your fat cells. Now why I bring up mitochondria is that these guys metabolise fat for energy and it is believed that low levels of fat-soluble toxins can poison the mitochondria. So these poisoned mitochondria are unable to metabolise these fat-soluble toxins leaving your body no choice but to store them in your fat cells increasing your waistline.
Also poisoned mitochondria are unable to metabolise glucose which leaves more sugar in the blood. Sugar in your blood begins to stick to other cells and proteins damaging them leading to accelerated aging, tumour growth aka cancer, and diabetes.
Finally with less mitochondria creating energy in your body you become fatigued and tired all the time.
So the next time you hear some authoritative figure say that your exposure to environmental toxins, to toxins in your food, at home and at work is too small to have an affect on your health realise that they’re right. But at the same time they’re wrong because these very small toxins will affect the very small energy centres in your body called mitochondria and one day you’ll wake up fat, sick, and nearly dead.
Your liver is the main detoxifying organ of the body, but it also plays many other roles that help keep you alive.
Your liver:
- Filters blood containing food nutrition from your gut
- Produces protein and cholesterol
- Stores energy as glycogen
- Turns excess sugar into fats
- Produces bile needed to digest fats
- Stores iron and vitamins and
- Detoxifies toxins and breaks down medications and drugs
As you can see your liver is a busy bee. Remember liver stands for life, for living, and the more you can support it the better your life will be. No doubt about it.
There are two phases that toxins, leftover hormones, medications and drugs, and other waste products go through when being processed by your liver.
Phase 1 neutralises the toxin setting it up for phase 2 which prepares the toxin for elimination via your bowels or your kidneys. If you find yourself constipated due to dehydration, poor nutrition, lack of movement, improper breathing, or high stress levels then the waste products in your poo will be reabsorbed back into your body and will either cause harm or have to go through a second round of detoxing causing extra strain and stress on your liver.
Phase 1 mainly uses vitamins and phytonutrients (plant nutrients), whereas phase 2 uses sulfur and amino acids. So you want to be eating plenty of vegetables and some animal and fruit fats to support phase 1 and plenty of sulfur-rich veggies as well as some animal meat to support phase 2.
I’ll put a link to the different micronutrients your liver uses in each phase in the show notes for this episode up on the Whole Guidance blog.
Your liver has a family of detoxification enzymes used to process external foreign toxins as well as internal natural toxins. There are different pathways in your liver a toxin can take in order for it to be processed for detoxification and elimination. If your liver enzymes or detox pathways get overloaded with a particular toxin then that enzyme and pathway will no longer be available to process other toxins that need them. Not only that, but if a toxin has to use an alternative pathway additional toxins, waste products, and damaging free radicals get produced causing more strain and stress on your liver.
For example, pain killers and alcohol these use the exact same detox enzymes and pathways in the liver. If you take these two toxins (yes alcohol is a low dose toxin), if you take them together then one or the other is going to last longer in your body causing side-effects. Now your liver will usually begin detoxing the alcohol first leaving the pain killer to have to use a different detox route. The problem with the pain killer having to go down this other detox pathway is that it creates a new waste product. This new waste product can only be taken care of by your body’s own innate antioxidant called glutathione. So now your body is having to produce more glutathione to neutralise this new waste product and your liver is having to do double-duty in having to process this new waste product again creating extra energy and nutrient demands on your body.
Bottom line is your liver requires a lot of energy and resources to function properly and if there’s an overload of toxins in your system then your liver is going to have to do more work draining energy and nutrients from other parts of your body. The less work your liver has to do the more energy and the more vitality you will feel and the better you will perform in life.
Toxins are hiding in everyday consumer products. You would think that if something was bad for you that your national government and local authorities wouldn’t allow it to be displayed on a store shelf and sold. But unfortunately we live in a world where dollars talk louder than cents. Literally money is more important in current society than common sense and well-being.
When it comes to food there are organophosphate chemicals used to poison life sprayed on crops and produce. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are sold as healthy. Growth hormones and antibiotics are used to increase sales of cattle, pork, and chickens. Naturally occurring metals like lead and mercury and other industrial chemicals bioaccumulate in seafood with the larger fish biomagnifying the effects. You are what you eat and your liver detoxifies what you eat and if you think your poor liver doesn’t have to deal with the chemicals, foreign genes, hormones, and drugs you get from the food you eat — you’re living in a dream world my friend.
Your kitchen is a potential toxic bomb. Are you still using teflon and non-stick cookware because it’s easier to cook with and to clean. Uh-oh. Perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) are what makes things non-sticky and are bad news for your liver and for your life if you wish to live it cancer free.
How about food containers? Do you use plastic food containers made with polyethylene, polypropylene, phthalates, bisphenol A (BPA) and bisphenol S (BPS)? These are all endocrine disruptors causing you to have unbalanced hormones and interferes with proper child growth and development, e.g. girls maturing earlier and boys developing more physical female attributes.
Don’t forget tap water is laced, yes I said laced with bleach aka chlorine and an industrial waste product that makes you and your children stupider than a single-celled amoeba called fluoride.
Home cleaning, air freshening, and laundry products are definitely a mass of toxic sludge.
- Ammonia
- Chloramine gas
- 1,4-dioxane
- Chloroform
- Bleach
- Phthalates
- Toluene
These are but a few of the chemical ingredients lurking in your living and working habitats.
Shower curtains! Most of these are made out of polyvinyl chloride aka PVC plastic and outgas, they release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as dioxins, xylene, and toluene that have no business anywhere near your liver. Every time you’re having a hot shower the increase in temperature only makes the PVC outgas even more.
Personal care products. Oh man talk about a toxic soup of epic proportions. Hair, skin, mouth products, deodorants and antiperspirants, cosmetics, antibacterial sanitisers (I used to love those things), soaps, sunscreens, baby wipes, diapers, tampons, pads etc these all have the following toxic crap. It’s a bit of a long list, but let’s do this.
- Aluminium or aluminum
- Chlorine
- Dioxins
- Furans
- Phthalates
- BPA and BPS
- Benzyl acetate
- Parabens
- Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS)
- Sodium laureth sulfate or sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SLES)
- Ammonium lauryl sulfate (ALS)
- Sodium pareth sulfate
- Triclosan
- Cocamide diethanolamine (cocamide DEA)
- Diethanolamine (DEA)
- Monoethanolamine (MEA)
- Triethanolamine (TEA)
- Monoisopropanolamine (MIPA)
- Ethoxylated alkyl amine (PEG)
- Oxybenzone
- Avobenzone
- Octisalate
- Octocrylene
- Homosalate
- Octinoxate
- Sodium polyacrylate
Phew!
Finally synthetic fragrance. Whenever you see fragrance on a product remember that this one single word will have 10s of ingredients hidden behind it. It’s a loophole that businesses use to hide what they don’t want consumers or their competitors to see.
The clothing you wear also affects your health. If your clothes contain synthetic plastics and metals than these will interfere with your hormones and energy signature. This includes stain-resistant clothing.
Your furniture and carpets will be outgassing toxic chemicals including flame retardants. Baby’s new crib, could be a cesspool of poison. That new car smell, that ain’t sunshine and roses my friend. That’s a burden on your liver.
Also electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and toxic relationships create additional stress for your liver. Wifi signals, cell towers, electronic gadgets, stress, and stinkin’ thinkin’ all create an imbalance in your energetic being, your aura, your energy vortices known as chakras. Chakras that are out of sync create havoc with your physical, emotional, and mental bodies. This is due to the EMFs and perceived stress in your life causing a buildup of positive electrons in your cells that act as free radicals that damage your body from the inside out.
Okay I know that was a lot to take in, but if you want a happy and healthy life you need to know what could be causing your liver to be weak and tired and in turn making you feel weak and tired.
So right now you need to ask yourself one question:
“Do I have toxins in my body?”
The answer is a brutal yet life-changing YES!
Brutal because industrial chemicals have been found in Antarctic ice and at the tops of mountain ranges around the world. We live in a toxic world and there’s no running or hiding from it.
Life-changing because now that you know better you can do better.
So your goal isn’t to go fleeing into the woods or some cave high up in the Himalayas. You cannot escape being exposed to toxins.
What you can do though is dramatically reduce that toxic load.
The following is a list of the top 10 things you can do to love your liver and detox your life:
1. Eat organic naturally raised produce and animals that aren’t genetically modified and haven’t been treated with chemicals. You can grow and raise your own food or buy local from farmers markets.
Eat large fish like tuna on rare occasions and focus more on small fish like wild-caught sardines and salmon as well as seafood.
Remember to eat a variety of different coloured vegetables to support your liver’s first phase of detoxification and eat plenty of sulfur-rich vegetables and some animal protein to support the second phase.
According to the 5 Element theory in traditional Chinese medicine sour foods are great for supporting the liver. So a tea made with freshly squeezed lemon juice and freshly grated ginger would be ideal for loving your liver.
Drinking fresh vegetable juices (not fruit juices) with some lemon or lime and ginger is another liver tonic.
2. Drink spring, artesian, and filtered water.
3. Take liver supporting supplements that contain milk thistle extract silymarin and dandelion root.
4. Use cast iron, ceramic, stainless steel, or glass cookware and food containers.
5. Swap out standard home care and personal care products for ones with organic natural plant-based ingredients or make your own. There are plenty of recipes online on how to make natural all-purpose cleaners, toothpaste, and deodorants.
6. Wear clothes made of natural fibres. Hemp and wool are awesome choices as even some cotton today is genetically modified.
7. Buy furniture that is made without volatile organic compounds and fire retardants. Air out any new furniture, a new car, or a newly renovated house for a few days to a week before using.
8. Turn off wifi and any electronics that aren’t in use. Ground yourself to the Earth every day by spending at least 30 minutes with bare skin to soil, grass, and sand.
9. Let go of resentment. See everyone as another version of you living in another set of clothing in a different pair of shoes. Just as you had no control on the body you were given and the parents that you were born with neither did anyone else. Realise we are all finding our unique way through life and we all have our own personal ways to express love. Doesn’t mean we will understand each other’s expression, but at least we can understand we are all trying to express that One Love that drives us all.
10. Manage yourself when it comes to handling stress through proper breathing, meditation, sleeping, hydration, nutrition, exercise and play, and by being out in nature.
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